VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

VOINews, Jakarta - The Ministry of Trade has signed a cooperation agreement with state-run oil and gas company PT Pertamina (Persero) to help small and medium enterprise (SME) players export their products and encourage them to go global.

The agreement was signed by the ministry's director general of national export development, Didi Sumedi, and corporate secretary of Pertamina, Brahmantya Satyamurti Poerwadi, at the ministry's office here on Thursday.

"With strong collaboration between the government and stakeholders like Pertamina, we can realize the shared vision to develop an ecosystem of SMEs that are strong, innovative, and have high competitiveness in the global market," Sumedi said in a written statement released here on Thursday.

Under the cooperation, the ministry and Pertamina will synergize and utilize their resources to assist export-oriented SME players.

Sumedi explained that the scope of the cooperation is increasing the capacity of business players in the export sector and carrying out trade promotions for SMEs to help expand their export market.

He said that the collaboration will be realized by playing an active role in providing technical assistance and assistance for increasing capabilities and competitiveness and expanding the market access of SME products.

The ministry and Pertamina are committed to complementing and supporting each other in encouraging SMEs to go global, he said.

The cooperation is expected to contribute significantly to national economic growth and have a multiplier effect on the Indonesian people.

According to Poerwadi, the SMEs that are being assisted by Pertamina were selected based on a strict curation process at the SME Academy and Pertapreneur Aggregator programs.

He expressed the hope that through the cooperation, SMEs assisted by Pertamina would contribute to increasing the national export value.

"We also hope that Pertamina-assisted SME players can get capacity-building facilitation through export education and training activities, as well as have the opportunity to promote their products to the global market through various promotional activities carried out by the Trade Ministry," he said. (Antaranews)